South Australia is keen to be at the forefront of better cancer treatments and is lobbying for federal support to establish a proton therapy and research centre.

Director of radiation oncology at the Royal Adelaide Hospital Associate Professor Michael Penniment said proton therapy could avoid current side effects of radiotherapy.

"Proton therapy is a way of being able to stop the radiation before it hits normal tissues," he said.

"That's fantastic for all of our children that are having radiation therapy, but also [for treating] tumours that are close to critical structures like spinal cords where proton therapy still cures the cancer, but it stops before it gets to the critical normal tissue."

The treatment currently is unavailable in Australia and the Federal Government pays for about 10 Australians per year to travel overseas for proton therapy treatment at a cost of about $200,000 per patient.

Professor Penniment said making the treatment available in Australia would be a cheaper option and allow more people to benefit from it.

"[It could help] 600 or 800 patients across Australia who have no other curative option for treatment," he said.

"A lot of those patients don't even know they're missing out [at present]."

Jay Weatherill writes to PM seeking funding
The SA Government said it would cost about $280 million to establish a proton therapy centre as part of Adelaide's new city biomedical precinct and urged the Federal Government to back the plan with funding.

Premier Jay Weatherill said he had written to the Prime Minister and was encouraged by his receptiveness to the proposal.

Mr Weatherill said a centre could draw patients from across Australia and from overseas and create its own income stream.

"There is a substantial contribution from both the Flinders University, the South Australian Government and there is of course a business case associated with an income stream," he said.

He said SA would be an ideal location for the treatment centre, with its a history of groundbreaking medical advances, including by the Nobel Prize-winning father and son William Lawrence Bragg and William Henry Bragg a century ago.

"Nobel Prize winner Bragg determined the technologies which sit behind these cyclotrons or particle accelerators which are at the heart of this treatment so it's our ambition to draw on that historical tradition and have South Australia once again the home of applying this technology," the Premier said.

Backers of the proposed venture said it could be built by 2019 if federal backing was secured.

I'd say the state government would probably like to bring forward the Women's and Children's Hospital as an election issue for 2018 so it would be convenient to have this well underway.
Think forward to 2022 when this whole precinct will be for the most part complete and flourishing with people.

Blow to SA plans for $280m medical research hub after Flinders Uni withdraws its sharesBrad Crouch, Medical reporter, The Advertiser

PLANS for a $280 million medical research hub, which was to be home to an Australian-first therapy unit offering hope to inoperable cancer patients, are all but doomed after Flinders University withdrew its $60 million share.

In a blow to Premier Jay Weatherill’s grand vision for a new medical research hub adjacent to SAHMRI on North Tce, the university has withdrawn its stake in the project because it says the Federal Government failed to deliver any funding. Mr Weatherill admits it is now “unlikely to proceed”.

The 12-storey centre, dubbed “SAHMRI 2”, would have created 1000 jobs during construction and housed more than 500 researchers.

It was planned to house the nation’s first proton-therapy unit capable of destroying otherwise inoperable cancers without harming healthy tissue, giving patients a last ditch hope of survival if they could not afford to try their chances with such units overseas.

From memory the federal government has already provided funding for the Unisa and Adelaide Uni buildings on
North Terrace. So our premier (the low talker) was probably pushing his luck in asking for federal funding for this
project as well.

ghs wrote:From memory the federal government has already provided funding for the Unisa and Adelaide Uni buildings on
North Terrace. So our premier (the low talker) was probably pushing his luck in asking for federal funding for this
project as well.

And why shouldn't he? If he didn't people would call him lazy for not exploring all opportunities to create jobs and improve the economy.

ghs wrote:From memory the federal government has already provided funding for the Unisa and Adelaide Uni buildings on
North Terrace. So our premier (the low talker) was probably pushing his luck in asking for federal funding for this
project as well.

And why shouldn't he? If he didn't people would call him lazy for not exploring all opportunities to create jobs and improve the economy.

Yep absolutely, just as the feds should try and get other sources to fund it if they can. This should still go ahead, all this looks like is a bit of cat and mouse to see who will pay for what. Mind you it would've been nice if Flinders could have come out with this before the election. Securing funding would've been much easier.

ghs wrote:From memory the federal government has already provided funding for the Unisa and Adelaide Uni buildings on
North Terrace. So our premier (the low talker) was probably pushing his luck in asking for federal funding for this
project as well.

And why shouldn't he? If he didn't people would call him lazy for not exploring all opportunities to create jobs and improve the economy.

Yep absolutely, just as the feds should try and get other sources to fund it if they can. This should still go ahead, all this looks like is a bit of cat and mouse to see who will pay for what. Mind you it would've been nice if Flinders could have come out with this before the election. Securing funding would've been much easier.

If it's really such a good project for SA then why does the Federal government need to fund it ?

Why doesn't the state government chip in a lazy $220 million ?

I guess the state government can't afford it because the local economy is a disaster.